Scot and I have lived in our home now for almost 4 years. Since we moved in we have talked about a total gut job on the kitchen and we are famous for saying, we’re doing it “next year” for the past three. We finally talked and decided to continue to push our kitchen renovation at least another year. I also knew, that if I had to live with our kitchen for another year or two, I needed a refresh! We wanted to do a simple budget, friendly kitchen update that would last until it was time for the renovation.
See our kitchen had dark tile, dark backsplash, outdated appliances and just an overall depressing vibe. I needed to bring some light, bright happiness into this space!
this is a before of the kitchen when we moved in, dark, dingy and depressing!
I decided to paint the backsplash, remove a cabinet for open shelving and cover the countertops. The total project only took 3 days and now I wish I would have done this a long time ago!
Day 1 // Backsplash
I first started with the backsplash. The worst part about doing the backsplash, was the wait time in between coats of paint. I first cleaned the back splash with a heavy duty cleaner called TSP. You mix the solution with water and wipe with a cloth. Super easy and it cleans off all the grease and residue that kitchen tile tends to hold. I then sanded the tile just to get the first layer of sheen off. (honestly, I have no clue if this helped at all but everything I read said you had to sand, so I did! lol!) After that, I used a heavy duty primer, followed by 3 coats of paint. The whole process was super simple and the results are amazing! We did have to wait 2-4 hours in between each coat, which was honestly the worst part about the whole process.
this is after the primer
after the first coat of paint
three coats complete!
Day 2 // Countertops
After the backsplash was complete, I cleared and cleaned the counters. I cleaned the counters again with the TSP solution and let them dry. Then covered to counters with D-C-Fix Contact paper. I simply laid the contact paper and used a smoothing tool to lay the paper flat and used a box cutter to cut out around my stove top and kitchen sink. This whole process took me only about two hours. And It’s honestly not perfect, but looks soooo much better than it did before and cost me less than $50!
Day 3 // Paint and finishing touches
The last thing on the kitchen facelift to-do list is to paint the walls. In addition, I spray painted the hardware on the cabinets a matte black. We were planning on replacing the hardware however, the size isn’t standard and I couldn’t find a replacement so this was the next best thing. The wall paint color is Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams and is the perfect coastal pale green color. We have this same color in our spare bedroom and front hallway because I love it so much! The floating shelves we still have not decided on, so more to come on that! We have budgeted about $100 – $150 for those but just haven’t found any that we love just yet.
And thats all it took to nearly transform out less than drab kitchen, to a bright, airy room in our home. Our full kitchen renovation designing has begun, but nothing will happen for quite some time still. In the meantime, I have something I can live with, that didn’t break the bank!
I hope this helps cast a vision for your budget friendly kitchen update!
Much Love,
Shan
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